Normative and Instrumental Compliance - Essay Example

? Normative and instrumental compliance Introduction Compliance is a response that follows a request. The request may be implicit or explicit depending on the target of the request. Instrumental compliance is a system that happens throughout people’s lives. In this case, people obey the law to escape punishment or to get reward. In instrumental compliance, a motivating factor is present. This is a system in which, a person is threatened to obey the law, failure to which an intense punishment is imposed on him. In most countries, it is necessary to use instrumental compliance in order to maintain law and order in the country. If a country does not have the procedures of punishing evil deeds, crimes will be committed randomly and can lead to a failure of a government. In schools, instrumental compliance is practiced every day where the institution offers a reward to a student who performs well. These rewards help in challenging the other students to work even harder. On the other hand, the institution can also punish those students who fail to do a chore or duty. This again will help the other students to shun disobedience. Punishments and rewards are commonly used in public and private institution in order to enhance compliance. In places of works, people who perform well in desired activities end up being promoted to the next level in their career, their status change or they can get a pay rise. In contrast, normative compliance is when people do what they do because they think it is socially right. These sets of rules flow from social rules that are internalized. These are the internal feelings and thoughts that make people not to shoplift the items of their neighbors’ shop. Committing such an action is morally wrong and this feeling is what gives most people a sense of law abidance (Smith & Cornish, 2004, p.9). A community penalty occurs when a court or a justice system considers the crime committed punishable by the community. These penalties always require that an individual gets punished through performing some hard chores so that he cannot repeat the mistake again. The bodies that conduct these punishment, in the community level include, the action plan order which helps to enhance the social skills of the offender. It raises awareness on the influences of peer relationships and consequences of offences. Secondly, the offender might be required to attend the community rehabilitation classes where the offenders are taught to obey. Several classes in the community levels can help the offenders not to commit the crimes again. In a society, rules and regulations that ensure that individuals behave well must exist for people to behave well and avoid punishments of certain crimes. In most cases, the crimes are committed as a result of influences from social group. Different communities punish people different depending on the strictness of the community. In a community, social influence is the process of putting change to the people in the community. The norms of communities might be different but the individuals who belong to that community must be straight enough to respect them. For example, the people might receive direct orders, compliance, conformity, or obedience to the norms. Conformity can work well to reduce the cases of crimes in the society (Knight, 2003, p.55). Why people obey the law Most people obey the law because they think that it is the right thing to do or because they fear being punished. It is advisable for people to obey the law since it is the right thing to do. This reason makes people not to feel as if the law is a burden to them. Every person should obey the law because it is their duty to do so. In the world today, countries obey the law only when certain offences have been committed or when there is a presence of threat due to breakage of the law. In the absence of these threats, people disobey the rules of the country without any fear. In addition to this, government’s officials in most countries change the law to fit a situation or ignore a situation completely. The law is not respected in many countries since it is not given a chance to guide people. Instead, the nation is above the law. As a result of this, the people living in the nations compare themselves with their actions with the action of the government. If the government as a body cannot obey the law, it does not make any sense for individuals to obey the law. When a government places itself below the law, its people find the obeying of the law as their moral obligation. America is an example of an exceptional country since it places itself below the law (Hall, 2012, p.67). One of the biggest reasons that people break the law is they feel that the law is not legitimate. For example, underage people drink alcohol because they believe that they are old enough to drink alcohol just as the old people drink. These people always feel that the majority of the people who passed this law are above the age of 21. At the same time they feel that the people who are affected directly, those who are below the age of 21, do not have the ability to go against the law. For this reason, they feel that the law is unfair to some people. Most people believe that a law is right when majority of people help in creating it. For a law to be considered legitimate, it must be right and beneficial to every person. On the other hand, the law functions well when the majority of the people who are affected by the law create it. Therefore the people who are affected by the law must increase participation in the creation of the law in order to increase the law’s legitimacy (Smith & Cornish, 2004, p.76). For a citizen to obey the law, the government has an obligation to communicate the law on to the citizens. If the people are unaware of the existence of the law, they are most likely to disobey it. This may also happen when the citizen does not fully understand the law. Telling the people about the existence of a law alone does not enhance compliance. Instead, the lawmaker must explain to the people the importance of the law. On his explanation, the lawmaker must assure the people who are affected by the law on the functionality of the law. This can be best explained by highlighting the benefits of the law to the society. From the above explanation, the people who are affected by the law are most likely to develop an internalized obligation of obeying the law. In the above example of underage drinking, the law makers should explain to the underage the negative effects that drinking can cause to their education instead of just asking them not to drink. This will increase the legitimacy of the law and in turn it will increase compliance of the law by the underage. Three factors explain why people obey the law are, on the issue of underage drinking, it is quite difficult to control the effects of the opinion of the peers, it is crucial for the personal morality to help a person stay out of problems. In this case, the normative perspective in this case includes the ideas of the peers while the normative value is the connection with the perceived law. Studies have shown that citizens obey legal authorities and law from an instrumental perspective point of view (Tyler, 2006, p.33). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing Every society has the rules and regulations that guide them to ensure that its people do not indulge in crime. The core purpose of the legal authorities is to bring the behavior of the citizens in line with the set rules and regulations. For this reason, it is important for the lawmakers and social scientist to understand the patterns of how people respond to the dynamic mechanisms in life. The police must be people that the public trust to deliver justice in case of a crime. In most countries, the police have become a body that favors part of the criminals therefore it has become extremely difficult for the public to trust the police (Tyler, 2007, p.98) When the police act correctly by enhancing investigations and only punishing the people who have committed a crime, the public would have trust on them and they would not fear the instrumental judgments such as, fearing the penalties for wrong doings, the favoring powers of the police when curbing crimes and the equality of the distribution of the services of the police. When the police act rightfully, they enhance the public cooperation when curbing the crime. The public do this by acting as witness in case the court needs to prove a person’s innocence. Secondly, the public can help the police by providing evidence of an offence. For example, in some countries growing of the bhang plant is illegal. For the fear of facing penalties of being silent on a crime, the public can cooperate and alert the police on the existence of the bhang plantations. Additionally, this decision is the right thing for the public to take since the bhang plants will in turn introduce their children to drug abusing. Secondly, to allow the work of the public to run smoothly, the public must comply with the law at all time to avoid bad encounters with the police which can make the public to paralyze efforts of the government to empower the police. Most of the times, people judge the police based on their distributive fairness, performance and the risks that they face. Sometimes the police may favor the people of a certain part due to political issues. The fear of crime Many people across the world fear committing crimes for the psychological purposes. In addition to this, people have developed fear on the crime due to victimization. Through the media or conversation between people, people have developed fear on the criminal activities. Direct personal experience on a crime is what enhances victimization of other people. According to researchers, the social groups that are likely to face victimization are fearless and are mostly young men. On the other hand, the social groups that victimization is not likely to affect them are more fearful and they include a group of older women (Ceccato, 2012, p.23). People get worried when they imagine that they can fall victim of any crime. Once a person about a person who has gone through a horrible event, they tend to keep imagining what would happen if they were the ones in the situation. Watching of terrifying events makes a person to imagine while comparing the events of either injustice or crime. Also, listening to unpleasant events of crime can make a person to perceive risks (European Society of Criminology & Kury, 2008, p.19). Legitimacy and order in the prisons In prisons, there are rules and regulations that govern the life of the prisoners. Just as in an institution, every prisoner who disobeys the rules that guide the prison is punished dearly. These rules are very tough in order to make the prisoners become obedience citizens. These tough are also meant to change the lives of the prisoner who came in with serious crimes. Order in the prison implies a sense of trust and regularity among the people who are involved in the prison. Order in the prisons ensures that the activities in the prisons run smoothly. This largely depends on the cooperation of the prisoners (Brown, 2003, p.34). Many people across the world fear committing crimes for the purposes that are mostly psychological. In addition to this, people have developed fear on the crime due to victimization. Through the media or conversation between people, people have developed fear on the criminal activities. Direct personal experience on a crime is what enhances victimization of other people. According to researchers, the social groups that are likely to face victimization are fearless and are mostly young men. On the other hand, the social groups that victimization is not likely to affect them are more fearful and they include a group of older women. Although there is a relationship between the dramatizations of crimes, the fear of crimes by people and the and the reports of the media, recent studies shows that the interpretations and perceptions of people are the crucial media material (Ugwudiike & Raynor, 2013, p.64). Conclusion From the perspective of the law, voluntary adherence to the law has advantages over the one that one is being force. If the police force the citizen to abide by the rules of the country, they will use a lot of resources in order to achieve this. Voluntary compliance has much less cost and legal authorities prefer it. Since normative perspective entails internalized rules of justice, the legal authority need to find out more about what people think about a certain law. On the other hand, instrumental refers to the compliance to the law as a form of a behavior that is influenced by external factors. This results to the critical look on the burden that the legal authorities have in trying to shape the behavior of the public. Legitimacy and morality are not identical, but leaders’ focus on achieving legitimacy since it gives the authority power over the citizens during governing. Despite the fact that morality can lead to compliance with the law, it can also work against the law. Reference BROWN, A. (2003). English society and the prison: time, culture and politics in the development of the modern prison, 1850-1920. Woodbridge, The Boydell Press. CECCATO, V. (2012). The urban fabric of crime and fear. Dordrecht [etc.], Springer. EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY, & KURY, H. (2008). Fear of crime-- punitivity: new developments in theory and research. Bochum, Universita?tsverlag Brockmeyer. HALL, S. (2012). Theorizing crime & deviance a new perspective. London, Sage. KNIGHT, T. (2003). Evaluation of the community sentences and withdrawal of benefits pilots. Leeds, Corporate Document Services. SMITH, MARTHA J. EDITOR, & CORNISH, DERECK B. EDITOR. (2004). Theory for practice in situational crime prevention. Devon, UK, Willan Pub. TYLER, T. R. (2007). Legitimacy and criminal justice: international perspectives. New York, Russell Sage Foundation. TYLER, T. R. (2006). Why people obey the law. Princeton, N.J. [u.a.], Princeton University Press. UGWUDIKE, P., & RAYNOR, P. (2013). What works in offender compliance: international perspectives and evidence-based practice. Read More